Monday, January 6, 2014

NPR's closed-captioning receiver

NPR is getting an award for its FM receiver to be used as part of an emergency alerting system for the deaf. The Consumer Electronics Association is making NPR labs an Innovations 2014 Design and Engineering Awards Honoree. The award will be presented at the CEA annual conference, which starts tomorrow in Las Vegas. The closed-captioned radio is a standalone box intended to supply emergency information whenever the power is out and WiFi isn't working. Right now, those emergency alerts are the only thing being offered, but NPR says it intends to eventually offer captioning for most of its programming. The device is being tested now along the Gulf Coast. Read more information here.